[plug] Intellectual Property

[Mike from West Australia]

There seems to be a bit of overall confusion on this issue,

My interpretation is this, for example:-

When you buy a car, you pay for the car you own it 'fully' and can do
anything you like with it - drive it, crash it, burn it, sink it, supe
it up, paint it, remove parts, add differnt parts etc (all within normal
legislative regulations in respect of public endangerment etc)

What you don't automatically own is the right to copy it - plain and simple.

If you pay extra money to say the HSV team to design for you a special
skirt or some other one-off that you want for your car, then you also own
it and can do what you like with it - the exception being you cannot copy
it no matter how much you paid for it, unless the contract explicity
indicated you could.

The same goes for architects, you own the plan and (when you pay for it)
the house built from that plan - but you don't automatically own the right
to copy that plan or make profit from its duplication or build another
house from that plan without gaining the right to from the architect.

When a bricklayer puts up your home, you own the bricks and the result
of his work - you don't automatically own the right to use his intellectual
property in any houses - ie. If the bricklayer has a particular method
of construction that is his intellectual property then you don't have the
right to profit from that. You'd be hard pressed though to find any IP
of value in bricklayers or plumbers or boilermakers that is novel as most
construction techniques are now in the public domain for over 100 years...

When a lawyer draws up a contract for you and another party, he owns the
copyrigfht in that contract, you don't have the right to copy it (beyond
normal use policy) without his agreement.

When an electrician/engineer designs a circuit, he wons the copyright
unless he is a full time employee in which case copyright is normally
vested (by default) within the company according to the company's
'employment contract'. The employee is not classed as an independent
contractor.

When a contract programmer designs software, he is the author and owns
the rights to copy it as long as it does not disclose client confidentiality
or damage the clients commercial position - this is aside from lost
opportunity cost.

Ie. If a contract programmer develops a wiz bang new relational database
system for a client then it is considered unethical for the contract
programmer to sell a copy to a competitor of the client. Instead of doing
that the contract programmer shoudl ensure they have the reserved right
to apply any new process/procedure they develop without impinging on the
commercial success of the client in the event that procedure had not been
developed etc. Granted this last one is a greay area but fortunately as the
case may be there are few 'new' or novel algorithmic techniques around for
the run of the mill contract programmer in todays commercial environment.

Most 'clever' programming techniques many would want to claim as their IP
have been done before with many many variations on a theme and most of the
bases if not all are taught at uni etc.

Thats my 2c worth,

Rgds

Mike